ATHENS — A day after fire destroyed a downtown facility that stored ammonium nitrate here, Athens officials said lessons learned from last year’s deadly explosion in West may have helped prevent a similar disaster in their town.

Authorities said that after the fertilizer explosion in West, which killed 15 people and injured hundreds more, firefighters decided to keep a safe distance from the blaze, hoping it would burn out on its own.

“We chose a course of action that we saw was fit at the time not to get people killed and not to get them hurt. That means first responders and the citizens,” Athens Fire Chief John McQueary said. “We took that course, and we do train on that. We understood West.”

Athens officials said they tightened the town’s safety standards after the tragedy in West, and after Thursday’s fire, Mayor Jerry Don Vaught said that those efforts paid off.

“They were very well-prepared and knew where to start,” he said of the city’s fire and police departments.

By Friday afternoon, officials had reduced the evacuation zone in Athens to a one-block radius surrounding East Texas Ag Supply and were letting many of the 350 people who had been ordered out of the area Thursday night back into their homes.

“We, along with everybody else in the nation, have learned a great deal from the West incident,” McQueary said. “We focused more on this facility because we knew it was in close proximity to our town.”

McQueary said East Texas Ag Supply had received a shipment of about 70 tons of ammonium nitrate earlier Thursday. That’s about twice the amount of fertilizer that ignited the West blast.

Officials said Friday that they were treating the facility as a crime scene until the investigation is completed to ensure everything is handled properly.

McQueary said officials were concerned that the building was nearly engulfed in flames just 30 minutes after its owner, Kenneth McGee Jr., left the facility.

Officials asked the public to send in any photos or videos of the fire to help authorities look for any suspicious people or vehicles near the facility around the time of the blaze.

Vaught said Thursday that McGee had been notified of the damage. McGee could not be reached for comment Friday.

It is unclear what type of security measures were in place at East Texas Ag Supply. State law requires that facilities that store ammonium nitrate be “fenced or otherwise enclosed and locked when unattended.”

Local, state and federal investigators were in Athens to help with the investigation Friday. The fire’s cause and point of origin had not yet been determined.

“We will investigate this, and we will determine not only what went wrong, but what went well and help that situation for other departments in the future,” McQueary said.

Rachel Moreno, a spokeswoman for the State Fire Marshal’s Office, said Friday that until the scene had been assessed, the agency could not release information on East Texas Ag Supply, such as when it was last inspected or details on inspection results. Vaught said the cinder-block storage facility had been open for 50 years.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality monitored air quality in the area throughout the night and morning and had found no toxicity, McQueary said.

Athens’ annual Old Fiddlers Reunion and a carnival were canceled Friday night because of the fire, but city officials said both would be open Saturday.

Jon Garrett, who works at Athens Screen Printing near the storage facility, said he left the area after seeing smoke coming from the building.

“I thought of West after the first firetruck came through and a hazmat came after,” he said.

He said that working near a facility that stored ammonium nitrate concerned him, especially after the West explosion.

“The building should have moved from the area after West,” he said. “I hope they don’t let them back. At some point you have to use common sense and say they shouldn’t be here.”

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